Charles Rhodes, Ph.D. (Former Employee)

This paper creates a first set of forest natural capital accounts and demonstrates how these accounts can be integrated with general equilibrium models of the economy. Focusing on the Colorado River Basin, we show that deforestation has direct implications for the forest industry and indirect impacts on the economy through water treatment costs and carbon stock. 327,000 acres of forest...

IntroductionFloods account for more than 75 percent of Federal disaster declarations and lead other natural disasters in economic costs. Early-warning systems have lowered flood-related fatalities, but costs continue to rise as flood-prone areas continue to be urbanized (U.S. Geological Survey, 2006). A Lake Champlain case study shows that at moderate flood heights, the economic costs of...

Information used in decision making arises from the structuring of observations and data. The collection, dissemination, and use of information has monetary and non-monetary costs (e.g., competition for attention) and necessitates trade-offs. Understanding the benefits of having information (i.e., the value of information, VOI), including resulting societal outcomes, is useful to...

Global understanding of the interconnections between the environment and economy has increased, driving the development of frameworks and standards that support the measurement and valuation of natural capital and ecosystem services by both governments and businesses. This paper outlines how businesses can use natural capital accounts (NCA) aligned to the System of Environmental Economic...

There is growing interest within and beyond the economics community in assessing the value of information (VOI) used in decision making. VOI assessments often do not consider the complex behavioral and social factors that affect the perception, valuation, and use of information by individuals and groups. Additionally, VOI assessments frequently do not examine the full suite of...

The United States and European Union (EU) face common challenges in managing natural capital and balancing conservation and resource use with consumption of other forms of capital. This paper synthesizes findings from 11 individual application papers from a special issue of Ecosystem Services on natural capital accounting (NCA) and their application to the public and private sectors in...

No abstract available.

In this study, we develop urban ecosystem accounts in the U.S., using the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA) framework. Most ecosystem accounts focus on regional and national scales, which are appropriate for many ecosystem services. However, ecosystems provide substantial services in cities, improving quality of life and contributing...

No abstract available.

Ecosystem accounts, as formalized by the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Experimental Ecosystem Accounts (SEEA EEA), have been compiled in a number of countries, yet there have been few attempts to develop them for the U.S. We explore the potential for U.S. ecosystem accounting by compiling ecosystem extent, condition, and ecosystem services supply and use accounts for a ten...

The nation’s economic accounts provide objective, regular, and standardized information routinely relied upon by public and private decision makers. But they are incomplete. The U.S. and many other nations currently do not account for the natural capital — such as the wildlife, forests, grasslands, soils, and water bodies—upon which all other economic activity rests. By creating formal...